“You don’t choose boxing; boxing chooses you” is a boxing saying of unknown authorship. Boxing, for someone from a poor neighborhood, is sometimes the only profession to choose.
 
“You may believe that you don’t choose a career, that the career chooses you” was cited in 1977. “You don’t choose which one you are; your style chooses you”—about boxing styles—was cited in a 2006 book. “You don’t choose to be a boxer, boxing chooses you” was cited in 2012.
 
   
Google Books
100 Careers:
How to Pick the One That’s Best for You
By Laird Durham
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall
1977
Pg. 3:
You may believe that you don’t choose a career, that the career chooses you.
 
Google Books
Oprah Winfrey Speaks:
Insights from the World’s Most Influential Voice
By Janet Lowe
New York, NY: Wiley
1998
Pg. 33:
“Sometimes you don ‘t choose your career. It chooses you.”
 
Google Books
Closing the Racial Academic Achievement Gap
By Matthew Lynch and Harry Carr, III.
Chicago, IL: African American Images
2006
Pg. 64:
You don’t choose the profession; the profession ultimately chooses you.
 
Google Books
The Gleason’s Gym Total Body Boxing Workout for Women:
A 4-Week Head-to-Toe Makeover
By Hector Roca and Bruce Silverglade
New York, NY: Fireside (Simon & Schuster)
2006
Pg. 150:
You don’t choose which one you are; your style chooses you.
   
Gumship
Ji Hoon “Volcano” Kim Interview: Fighting Spirit
By Guest -  May 24, 2012
1. You don’t choose to be a boxer, boxing chooses you.
 
Twitter
Marky Torres
‏@Teeee_rexxx
Boxing is a way of life. You don’t choose it, it chooses you. ☝️
San Marcos, TX
11:19 AM - 3 Aug 2014
 
Twitter
Sandman
‏@KeeganGrove
Boxing is a lifestyle, you don’t choose it. It chooses you. Once you put the gloves on you take them to your grave
6:20 PM - 19 Oct 2014
 
Twitter
Boxing Ontario
‏@BoxingOntario
You don’t choose Boxing. Boxing chooses you! @boxing_canada @ManitobaBoxing @BoxNovaScotia @boxingbc @LennoxLewis
10:42 AM - 27 Dec 2014
 
Twitter
Only Full Fights
‏@OnlyFullFights
An 89 year old Jake Lamotta still throwing them hands! ‘You don’t choose Boxing it chooses you’ #boxing https://vine.co/v/Ow9vEBQYFP5
12:21 PM - 1 Jan 2015
   
Maxim
Mike Tyson Sizes Up the Fearsome New Wave of Boxers from Russia, the Ukraine and Kazakhstan
The former “Baddest Man on the Planet” faces off with Sergey Kovalev, Gennady Golovkin, Ruslan Provodnikov, Vasyl Lomachenko and Evgeny Gradovich.
March 3, 2015 By MIKE TYSON
(...)
Sometimes you don’t choose boxing, it chooses you. It’s the only sport that lets you escape violence and poverty through the act of violence itself.
 
The Sweet Science
TSS WHERE ARE THEY NOW? Eddie Gregg
BY EDDIE E. GREGG WITH ERIC B. THOMPSON ON MAY 20, 2015
(...)
But as the old adage goes, one doesn’t choose boxing, the sweet science of bruising, the hardest game, but rather it chooses you—usually the most disadvantaged, the deprived and the desperate among us.